Cremation or Burial? A Coffinbuilder's Honest Look at How North America Says Goodbye
Why I'm writing this
I build caskets for a living. I have been at it since 1997, so you'd think I'd have a strong opinion on cremation versus burial. I don't. Not the way you might expect, anyway.
What I do have is almost thirty years of standing in a shop, talking with families who are trying to make one of the hardest decisions of their lives. Usually they're in a hurry, usually they're grieving, and usually nobody has sat down to explain the options plainly. Is cremation really cheaper? Is burial "old-fashioned" now? What would Mom have wanted? Does it even matter?
It matters. Just not always in the ways people think.
So I went digging. Here's an honest look at how North Americans are choosing to say goodbye in 2026, what it costs, what it means, and where a handmade box fits into all of it. No sales pitch. Well. Maybe a small one near the end.
Where things stand: cremation now outnumbers burial two to one
In the U.S., the National Funeral Directors Association projected a 63.4% cremation rate for 2025, against 31.6% burial. In Canada it's higher again. The Cremation Association of North America puts the national rate around 77%. Here in British Columbia, it's been above 85% for years.
To put that in perspective, in 1960 only 3.6% of Americans were cremated. Cremation didn't pass burial in the U.S. until about 2015 or 2016. That's within the lifetime of the trucks in my driveway.
A few other things stood out to me:
• The climb is slowing. U.S. growth has dropped to about 1.3 points a year, and Canada's to under 1 point. When most people already choose cremation, there's less room to grow.
• Geography matters a lot. The Pacific Northwest, Nevada and Maine are above 80%. Mississippi is the only state still below 40%. The South has always leaned toward burial, though that's shifting fast.
• Within Canada, the West leads. B.C. is highest. The Atlantic provinces, P.E.I. especially, have stayed much closer to tradition. Nunavut is almost entirely burial.
• Where it's headed. The NFDA projects 82.3% cremation in the U.S. and 91.2% in Canada by 2045. U.S. burial would fall to about 13%.
So is burial dying out? Not quite. One in three American families still chooses it. That's a lot of families.
Why the big shift?
Nobody woke up one day and decided burial was out. It's been a slow drift, and the reasons stack on top of each other.
• Cost. This is the big one, and I'll get into real numbers below. When a family is already stretched, a few thousand dollars makes the decision for them.
• We move around. Grandma used to be buried in the churchyard down the road from where she was born. Now the kids live in three provinces. Who visits the grave? Who tends it? An urn can travel. A plot can't.
• Religion loosened up. The Catholic Church lifted its ban on cremation in 1963, and most Protestant churches followed. For a lot of families, the last real objection quietly disappeared.
• Flexibility. With cremation, the memorial doesn't have to happen within a week. You can hold a celebration of life in July when everyone can fly in. That counts for a lot.
• Smaller families, fewer traditions. Fewer people belong to a parish, and fewer have a family plot waiting. Without that pull, the default changes.
• The pandemic. When gatherings were restricted, a lot of families chose direct cremation and planned to "do something later." Some never did, and the habit stuck.
And honestly? Some of it is just that people stopped talking about death. When nobody discusses it, the cheapest, quickest option tends to win by default. Not because anyone chose it. Because nobody chose anything.
What it actually costs
Cremation is usually cheaper, but the gap is smaller than most people think once a service is involved.
Option United States (USD) Canada (CAD)
Direct cremation, no service about $2,800–$3,000 under about $2,200
Funeral with viewing, then cremation $6,280 median $6,721 average
Funeral with viewing, then burial (before cemetery costs) $8,300 median $9,150 average
That last row is the sneaky one. "Before cemetery costs" means no plot, no opening and closing of the grave, no vault or liner, and no headstone. Add those and a full traditional burial in Canada routinely runs $7,000 to $16,000, more in cities where land is expensive.
So where does the money actually go? Mostly into three buckets:
• Professional services and facilities. Staff, paperwork, transport and the chapel cost about the same either way.
• The cemetery. This is the real dividing line: land, digging, a vault, a marker and perpetual care.
• The casket. At a funeral home, the markup can be steep. More on that in a minute.
One thing I always tell families: you have the right to an itemized price list. In the U.S., the FTC's Funeral Rule requires one. In B.C., Consumer Protection BC regulates funeral providers. Ask for it, and take it home before you sign anything. Nobody should be making a $12,000 decision in a forty-minute meeting.
The environmental question
Neither option is perfectly green. They just leave different footprints.
Conventional burial uses land, and often a lot of materials: embalming fluid, a metal casket and a concrete vault. The body itself is the least of it. It's everything we wrap around it.
Flame cremation uses no land but burns a lot of fuel, usually natural gas, for a couple of hours at very high heat. That means carbon emissions, and older crematoria can release mercury from dental fillings.
Then there are the newer options people are asking about:
• Green or natural burial. No embalming, no vault, and a simple biodegradable casket or shroud, straight into the earth. It's closer to how our great-grandparents did it. There are green burial plots right here in the Okanagan, in Penticton.
• Aquamation (alkaline hydrolysis, or water cremation). It uses water, heat and an alkali instead of flame, with a much smaller carbon footprint. It's legal in roughly two dozen U.S. states and several provinces, including Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan. As of late 2025 it was still not legal in B.C., though Summerland, Whistler and other councils have pushed the province to change that.
• Human composting (natural organic reduction). It's legal in a growing list of U.S. states, starting with Washington. It's not yet an option in Canada.
Interest in green burial is climbing fast, especially with younger people. One Wake Forest survey found 52% of Gen Z respondents said green burial is what they'd choose. That surprised me. It shouldn't have.
Faith and tradition
For a lot of families, this part settles the question before cost ever comes up. Here's a general picture. Every family and congregation is a little different, so it's always worth asking your own faith leader.
Tradition General view
Roman Catholic Cremation has been allowed since 1963, but burial is still preferred. Church guidance asks that ashes be kept in a sacred place, not scattered or kept at home.
Most Protestant churches Both are widely accepted.
Eastern Orthodox Burial is strongly preferred; cremation is generally not permitted.
Judaism Traditional practice calls for prompt burial in a plain wooden casket. Reform communities are more open to cremation.
Islam Burial only, ideally within a day, in a simple shroud.
Hindu and Sikh Cremation is the tradition.
Buddhist Cremation is common.
Latter-day Saints Burial is preferred; cremation is not forbidden.
Indigenous nations Practices vary widely from nation to nation.
I'll admit I have a soft spot for the Jewish tradition here: a plain pine box, no metal, nothing fancy, built to return to the earth. Simple, honest and beautiful. Funny how the oldest ways are suddenly the "green" ones again.
Myths I hear all the time
"If we cremate, we can't have a viewing." You can. Many families hold a full visitation and funeral first, then cremate afterward. Funeral homes rent ceremonial caskets for exactly this.
"Cremation means no casket." Not quite. Crematoria require a rigid, combustible container. It can be a cardboard box, or it can be a solid-wood casket built for the purpose. Your choice.
"Burial is always the expensive option." Usually, but not always. A simple green burial in a plain wooden casket can cost less than a full-service cremation with all the extras.
"You have to buy the casket from the funeral home." In the U.S., the FTC Funeral Rule says a funeral home must accept a casket you bought elsewhere, without charging a handling fee. In Canada, the rules vary by province, so ask up front.
"Embalming is required by law." Generally it isn't, in either country. It may be required in certain situations, like a delayed service or transport across borders, but it's rarely mandatory for a prompt burial or cremation.
"Once we choose cremation, there's nothing to visit." Ashes can be buried in a family plot, placed in a columbarium niche, or kept in an urn at home where the faith allows it. A place to visit is still possible. It just looks different.
So where does a coffinbuilder fit in?
Here's my small sales pitch. I warned you.
People assume that if cremation is winning, guys like me are out of a job. Funny thing is, the handmade casket fits into almost every option on this list:
• Burial. This is the obvious one. A solid-wood casket made by hand often costs far less than a mass-produced steel model at a funeral home.
• Cremation with a viewing. Some families want their person honoured in something real and beautiful for the service, even knowing it won't be kept. A simple wooden cremation casket does that with dignity.
• Green burial. Unfinished pine, wooden pegs and no metal hardware. This is where a simple handmade box really belongs.
• Urns. Cremation still leaves something to hold. A hand-carved urn can become the family's place to gather.
• Building it yourself. More and more people want to make the casket for their parent, or even for themselves, ahead of time. It sounds strange until you see someone do it. Then it makes perfect sense.
That last one is close to my heart. Through CasketPlans.com and the Caskets 101 course, I've watched people build caskets for someone they love, and I can tell you it changes how they grieve. There's something about putting your own hands into the work. It's not a box anymore. It's the last thing you get to make for them.
A few questions to talk over at the kitchen table
There's no right answer here, only the answer that fits your family. If you're trying to decide, for yourself or someone you love, these questions help:
1. Does our faith or culture point us one way?
2. Is there a place we'd want to visit? Would anyone actually visit it?
3. Where will the family be living in twenty years?
4. What can we honestly afford, without anyone carrying debt for it?
5. Do we want a viewing, a service, a celebration later, or all three?
6. How much does the environmental side matter to us?
7. Is there anything we want to do with our own hands?
And the most important one: have we actually talked about it? Most of the hard moments I've seen didn't come from choosing the "wrong" option. They came from nobody knowing what Mom or Dad wanted.
So talk about it. Over coffee, on a road trip, wherever. It's not morbid. It's one of the kindest things you can do for the people you'll leave behind.
If you have questions, I'm always happy to help: coffinbuilder@coffinbuilder.com
— Mark Zeabin, coffinbuilder
Sources: NFDA 2025 Cremation & Burial Report; Cremation Association of North America 2026 statistics; National Museum of Funeral History; Dignity Memorial Canada; RBC Insurance; The Thunderbird (UBC); Castanet.